


Chocolate and Monsters

by orphan_account



Category: escape the night - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 03:12:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16109579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Matthew’s dead.And Rosanna is alone.





	Chocolate and Monsters

"The coin!" Matthew shouted, through the strongman's grip. "Look for the Lazarus coin!"

Rosanna ran away, following the group, but she looked back once, and she saw the strongman raise his arm and crush Matthew's skull.

And he was gone.

Bursting through the doors, everybody collapsed into a chair or a couch, exhausted.

Manny cleansed the artifact, and people started talking, but Ro couldn't really hear any of it. She could still hear Matt screaming as the strongman threw him on the ground, louder and louder, drowning everything out.

After he'd changed into that ridiculous gym getup, Matthew had handed Ro his badge. "Why didn't you hold on to this until I come back?" he'd said, grinning with feigned confidence, his smile an attempt to conceal the feelings of terror brewing inside of his chest.

Absentmindedly, Ro's fingers ran over the grooves in the metal.

She snapped back into reality when Joey tapped her shoulder. "We're heading to Fat Man Slims," he said. "People are saying they want a drink."

Ro nodded, and put the badge in her pocket. She didn't feel like talking. She didn't feel anything, really, just numb.

Everyone seemed to have forgotten that they were being hunted. They just walked into the restaurant casually and started grabbing drinks from behind the bar.

Joey handed Ro a beer, and she took it gingerly, cold condensation sweating against her fingers.

She sat in a booth alone, cupping her hands around the bottle.

Whenever she closed her eyes, she saw Matthew's terrified face before the strongman had killed him. So she took a sip of her beer, hoping it would dull her mind, wincing at the bitter taste.

Safiya was sitting with the rest of the group, packed together in a big booth. She saw that Rosanna and Colleen were separated from the rest of them.

Colleen was flirting with Mortimer, obviously avoiding Joey, but Ro was just alone, staring down at her drink.

Safiya knew it probably had something to do with Matt's death. He had been Ro's closest friend here. Before he'd headed into the death challenge, he had taken Safiya aside.

"Look," he'd said. "I don't have a good chance of getting out of this."

She had opened her mouth to protest, but he motioned for her to be quiet.

"I know Manny's stronger than I am. I'm going to give it my all, but the odds aren't great. So can you do something for me?"

Safiya nodded reluctantly, still concerned for Matt.

"I need you to protect Ro if I die. I couldn't live with myself if I knew that I was leaving her alone here. Just... make sure she's doing okay."

She had agreed, of course. You couldn't deny somebody's last request. But when he had died, she'd seen the light in Ro's eyes go out like a candle.

And now, Ro was sitting in a booth, holding a beer, alone.

Safiya was going to get up and go over to her, but Colleen started arguing with Joey out of the blue.

"I'm over this!" she said. "All of my friends are dying! Matt was one of our last hopes, and now he's dead because of Joey, thank you so much."

Joey raised his eyebrows, looking offended. "If anyone, blame Manny! He's the one who went up against-"

"Just 'cause I'm the strongest bitch here!" Manny interrupted defensively.

Ro stood up. "Nobody misses him more than I do. I miss him so much," she said, and that quieted the group down a bit.

Safiya scooted into the booth, motioning for Rosanna to sit next to her, and she gratefully took the spot.

"Thank you," Ro whispered, and Safiya put her arm around her.

Colleen and Joey were still yelling, and Safiya could sense Ro's discomfort. She didn't like it when everybody fought either. It brought out the worst in everyone, aggression and darkness rising to the surface. That's why she never engaged in any of the arguments that happened. She didn't want to put a target on her back.

So she gave Ro a supportive smile, trying to communicate that she understood.

Eventually, people's tempers calmed down, the map came off the wall, and the group figured out that they had to get to the merry-go-round, which was just a few yards down the street.

Ordinarily, that would not have been a problem. But, in a town where any sort of monsters could attack you at any given point, Safiya was nervous; she didn't know what to expect.

Joey stood up, and adjusted his jacket.

"Let's go."

***

The first few steps were fairly simple, if a bit long. They retrieved the first part of the artifact, followed amputated doll feet to the dollmaker's shoppe, tortured some toys, and finally retrieved the body of the Night Killer's doll.

But then it got more complicated.

As they walked outside to find their way to the doll parts storage room, two masked children were standing at the end of the road.

"Um, guys..." Safiya started, but Joey was already approaching them.

As soon as he took a step, though, the twins brandished long, serrated knives, and tore down the road towards them.

"Runrunrunrunrunrunrun," Manny hissed, and everybody sprinted for the storage shed.

Ro barely made it inside, slamming the door behind her, and after they'd taken a moment to recover, the group looked around, taking in their surroundings.

Soon, they figured out that to find the Maiden of Madness, they had to go through three tests, one of fear, one of pain, and one of blood.

Rosanna was not looking forward to this.

Nikita stepped up first with the test of fear, and got through it without any hesitation.

Then it was the test of pain, and no one was stepping up, so Safiya volunteered. But she soon realized that may have been a mistake.

The lever was rusty, and spotted with dried blood.

She closed her eyes, trying to summon some form of courage, but nothing could have prepared her for the giant jolt of electricity that leapt up her arm, almost causing her to let go of the lever.

Safiya gritted her teeth and pushed the lever forward, bracing against the unbearable waves of pain that were coursing through her body.

She finally let go, and a hatch opened. There was a metallic taste in her mouth, and her hair was still standing on end.

Colleen read the note aloud, and Ro bit her lip when she realized what they were going to have to do.

They had to split up.

Ro always hated dividing the team. She felt safer in a large group, and she never liked leaving her friends behind. But she knew that this was their only option.

"So we have to go find a blood doll?" Joey asked, his face scrunching up in disgust.

"Looks like it," Safiya replied, reading the note.

"Good luck," Colleen said. "Break a leg. And Joey, maybe you could literally break a leg. It would make you more useful for sure."

Joey sneered at her, but Safiya ushered them outside before a real fight could start.

The night was a deep purple, and fog was creeping through the town. It was suspiciously quiet.

"What do you think-" Joey said, but the twins scrambled out of the fog, giggling demonically.

"KNIFE! KNIFE! KNIFE!" they chanted, and lunged at the three of them.

Joey immediately turned around and went into the warehouse-type shed, where the blood doll was apparently located, and shutting the door behind him, leaving the other two outside.

The twins realized they'd been foiled and turned to Safiya and Ro, still giggling, and ran after them.

Safiya grabbed Ro's hand and ran for the nearest building, a decrepit structure with a foundation that was sinking into the dirt.

They ducked into the doorway and boarded it behind them, hearing the twins pound against the rotting door.

Ro peered out the window, but one of the dolls thrust its knife through a pane of glass, trying to get at them.

"I guess we'll have to wait it out," Safiya stated, sitting down against the wall, looking up at the flickering bare bulb that was illuminating the space.

"I hate creepy dolls," Rosanna said, shuddering in her coat. 

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. But Matthew was still dead. He wasn't here to tell her everything was going to be okay. 

Cicadas buzzed somewhere in the distance, and Ro fidgeted with Matthew's badge in her pocket. Safiya asked something, and it startled her. "What?" she asked.

"How are you doing?" Safiya repeated. "Matt's death hit us all pretty hard."

"I..." Ro started to say. "I just..." She was planning to tell Safiya that everything was fine, that she was holding up great, that she could handle this.

"You're allowed to be sad, you know. You don't have to pretend for us," Safiya said.

Ro opened her mouth, but only tears came out.

She was crying, tears falling down her face, leaning against the wall.

"Hey, hey, what's going on?" Safiya asked, looking at her. 

"He just seemed like he could survive anything," Ro whispered. "He seemed invincible. But now he's gone, and I'm still here. I couldn't save him."

"Ro, it wasn't your fault."

"I should've done something," Rosanna muttered, ignoring Safiya.

"Listen to me. There was nothing anybody could do. The death challenges are horrible like that," Safiya said, grabbing Ro's wrists and making her focus on her face.

"I miss him," Ro murmured.

"I know. I do, too. But we have to find a way out of this town. We can honor him through that."

Silence settled over the two of them.

The twins were still scratching maniacally at the door, growling.

There was a leak in the ceiling, and water dripped from it into a pail on the ground.

"Do you want some chocolate?" Safiya asked.

"Sure," Ro said, eyes still on the dirt floor.

Safiya broke the bar in half and handed one of the parts to Ro.

Rosanna looked up. "Where did you get this?" she questioned, the beginning of a smile starting on her face.

"The drugstore. I guess one benefit of being stuck in a time loop is that nothing ever expires."

Ro broke off little chunks and ate. 

The chocolate was sweet on her tongue, getting rid of the sour taste in her mouth. She hadn't eaten since this morning, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Four people had died since then.

"Thank you," Ro whispered after a while. 

"You're welcome. The chocolate's not even that good, though."

"I mean for everything. You've been a good friend, Safiya."

Safiya gave her a smile in return.

Ro looked up at the moldy ceiling. Matt would've hated this. He hated being stuck, unable to fix things.

She pulled the badge out of her pocket and looked at it, at the monogrammed letters over the golden surface, at the star in the middle.

But there was something she hadn't noticed before, the edge of a piece of paper poking out from under the badge itself.

She pulled it out with some difficulty, the rest of the chocolate sitting forgotten in her lap.

Ro,

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that I can't be there with you. I want to.

At the moment, I'm heading into a challenge that will almost surely kill me, but the knowledge that you're still here is keeping me going.

I'm sure you're doing great. You're stronger than you give yourself credit for.

It was an honor to be your friend, and I'm sorry I have to leave.

But everyone in this group loves you. There are so many people who you can count on, so many people who are ready to be there for you.

And I know, wherever I am right now, I'm proud of you.

So I want you to stop crying over me, okay? Keep going. You can win this. You can pull through.

I believe in you.

-Matthew

Safiya noticed Ro was crying and she looked over at her, but she was smiling through her tears.

She was reading something, and Safiya really wanted to look, but she continued to eat her chocolate instead, trying to look casual.

Ro folded up the paper and put it in her pocket with the badge.

"Let's find a way out of here," she said, determined, rolling up her coat sleeves.

"Those creepy twins are still outside, though," Safiya noticed, deciding to act normal, not wanting to lose Ro's new motivated attitude.

Ro grabbed a stick and started drawing up some sort of diagram of the town in the dirt.

"So we're not that far away from Fat Man Slims, where the rest of the group is, but the twins could corner us really easily if we approach it head on," Safiya started to explain.

"What if we came around the back?" Ro asked. "It's risky, but if we run..."

"We can outflank them!" Safiya finished. "Good idea."

"Let's go, then!" Ro exclaimed, standing up and bouncing on her toes.

"Calm down, tiger. We should establish a route now, so we're not just blindly sprinting."

A twin was still dragging their knife along the side of the shed.

"But we should probably hurry," Safiya said, following the knife's trajectory around the building with her eyes.

They strategized for a few minutes, and Ro came to a conclusion.

"Why don't we just cut through the alley and get in through a window? I think I saw an open one in the arcade."

"Yeah, I don't think there's a better option," Safiya replied. "Let's try it."

Before they went outside, Ro   
held the badge in her pocket, finding her bravery.

They opened the door, poked their heads out, and started to run.

Immediately, the twins were running after them, and there was a problem.

They were a lot faster than either of the girls had remembered.

Safiya knew that they wouldn't make it if they stuck to the original plan.

"I need you to protect Ro if I die."

She looked ahead at Rosanna, who was sprinting through the night, breathing quickly.

"I couldn't live with myself if I knew I was leaving her alone here."

And all at once, Safiya realized what she was going to do.

"Just... make sure she's doing okay."

"Run, Ro! Run faster!" she screamed, and Safiya stopped running, standing still in the road, bracing herself.

Ro didn't look back, pushing herself harder. She needed to get there for Matthew.

The dolls caught up to Safiya, and she fell to the ground, a knife buried in her gut, eyes locked on the door.

"Come on, Ro," she muttered, feeling blood soak her sweater.

As the edges of her vision grew fuzzy and her breathing became ragged, she saw Rosanna make it to the bar, and she smiled.

Triumphantly, Ro dashed through the doorway, into the room. She finally turned around, but Safiya wasn't right behind her like she thought.

"Oh, no," she said softly, turning around, looking through the glass panes in the door.

Safiya crumpled to the ground, the twins each skewering her with a knife.

All Ro could hear was a scream. Maybe it was her own.

Then she was running, ignoring the twins, only caring about getting to Safiya.

But she was too late.

The light in Safiya's eyes had already winked out, replaced by a deep darkness.

"Please, no," Ro whispered. "I can't lose you too. Please, please, please..."

Then Joey was there, and Manny, trying to get her back into the safety of the bar.

"No!" she cried, struggling against them. 

"Ro, we have to cleanse the artifact. Ro, come on," Manny pleaded. He ended up having to carry Rosanna inside.

 

“Let me go!” she protested, fists rapping against his back, but Manny ignored her.

She was done fighting by the time they got back inside. 

She was done.

"Where were the two of you?" Nikita asked Ro. "You all went to look for the blood doll, and only Joey came back."

Joey bit his lip, a guilty look on his face. He looked to Ro, but she didn't answer, just stared dully at the table in front of her.

"I got scared, and I... well, I accidentally locked them outside with the twins," he explained hesitantly.

A slow smile spread across Colleen's face, but she quickly covered it with a look of shock. 

"What?!" Manny exclaimed.

"I didn't know what to do! I was terrified!" 

"They were your friends. You left your friends alone to die!" Colleen yelled.

"JUST STOP!" Ro shouted, and it shocked the group into silence. "All of you, stop! I hate it when you fight like this!"

She stood up and walked away from the group, standing against the wall, tears hot on her cheeks.

Joey was crying too, but he was still with the group, sitting in the center of all their questions and accusations.

"Look, I found the second Lazarus coin, all right?" Joey said, trying to defend himself. "I'm sorry I left them outside, but I tried to make up for it. We can open that box now."

Ro couldn't hear any of this. She still had her back to everyone.

Safiya was dead. And the artifact wasn't even cleansed. Two people were going to have to die for this stupid doll.

Ro hated this town. She hated the monsters for taking her two best friends, hated the way it was turning everyone against each other, hated how alone she felt.

Nikita approached her. "We found the Butler of Anger or whatever, if you want to come with us."

Wiping her eyes, Ro nodded, following Nikita.

***

The room was dark.

It was minimally decorated, and the Maiden of Madness dwarfed everything in the space.

It was a giant casket-shaped piece of metal, and when Manny went to open it, blood and entrails dripped off foot-long spikes.

It smelled horrible.

"You have opened the Maiden of Madness, and regret will surely follow," Nikita read. "To cleanse the Night Killer's doll, it must first be placed in the chamber beneath her feet. Then one of you must be chosen by vote to forfeit their life and enter the Maiden. Once the door has been sealed and their screams have ceased, the doll will be cleansed."

Everyone's eyes were wide with shock, but Nikita kept reading. "Choose wisely. Their death will weigh on your conscience."

The group took a collective step backwards, away from it.

Calliope was laying out her cards, and everybody started looking at each other.

"So there's no challenge? No chance to fight?" Manny asked.

"You're just done," Joey answered gravely.

Ro felt a burning start in the back of her throat. She couldn't watch anyone else die.

But then voting started.

Everyone was voting for Colleen, saying she had been too harsh, that she was wrong to accuse Joey.

Rosanna dug her fingernails into her palms, dreading her turn. 

She walked up to the table, her hands hovering over each of the cards. She didn't want anybody to go in that thing. 

Eventually, she settled on Colleen, but she didn't want to. 

The look on her friend's face when Calliope drew the card would haunt Ro for the rest of her life.

Betrayal flashed in her eyes for a second, but then there was just emptiness, and terror.

"No..." she begged, pulling against their arms on her. "No, please, don't do this to me, please!"

Her voice got more and more desperate, and Ro couldn't look at her. Colleen sounded too much like Matthew had when he died.

Joey was the one who closed the Maiden, and they all heard her scream.

After standing in shock, trying to process what they had just done, Nikita rallied them together.

"There's no point in shedding tears anymore. We have two coins now, so let's go."

***

 

Ro couldn’t stop crying.

She wanted to. She felt self-conscious, because no one else was showing any sort of emotion. 

“Hey, Ro?” Joey asked tentatively. “Do you think you could help me with the Lazarus box? You have the other coin.”

“Yeah, sure,” Rosanna said, trying to cover up her red-rimmed eyes.

The coins were heavy in Joey’s hand when he placed them in the slots.

A chord rang through the lounge, and light flowed out of the box as it opened.

Ro couldn’t bring herself to care. Too many people had died.

But then Joey read the note, his voice filling with surprise.

“We better bring back someone good,” Nikita said, crossing her arms.

“So… so that means we have to decide?” Ro asked Joey.

“I guess so, yeah,” he replied.

Ro could feel her hands trembling. 

Colleen had been murdered unfairly.

Safiya had sacrificed herself.

But Ro knew who she was going to choose.

She felt selfish and awful and terrible, but there was never a choice for her.

She needed him back.

Joey was the one to strum the harp.

It sounded lyrical, but dissonant, like a song played through a broken speaker.

A seam of light appeared in the doorway of the arcade, slowly splitting and cracking up the length of the doorway.

Ro stood up, heart pounding in her ears and her chest.

Matthew stumbled out. His hair was askew, and his glasses were crooked, but he was still Matt.

She ran towards him and pulled him in for a hug, even though she’s a full foot shorter than him.

He’s here.

He’s alive, and he’s here, and he’s all right, and Ro can breathe for the first time in three hours.

“Missed you,” he said, voice rough.

She can’t even respond. She’s so busy trying to take every inch of him in, trying to commit her best friend to memory.

“Don’t ever leave me like that again,” she said, eyes filled with tears, lips pulled into a smile.

“Never.”

She leaned on his shoulder, relief lightening the heavy thoughts she had been carrying around. He put an arm around her, and almost everything was good again.

Almost.

Ro could still taste chocolate in her mouth, and in her head she made a promise.

I’m going to rescue you.


End file.
